After four frosty years, the first day of Barack Obama's visit to Israel was filled with smiles and hugs, as well as presidential promise. The American president stood on the patio of the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his side, and vowed that his "main goal on this trip is to have an opportunity to speak directly to the Israeli people, at a time when what is obviously already a pretty tough neighborhood has gotten tougher." Obama added that he wanted to let the Israeli people know that "they have a friend in the United States, that we have your back." Obama, who was due to address Israeli university students at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem on Thursday, stressed two main points: The U.S. and his personal uncompromising support for Israel, including financial and military aid his country would provide alongside technological and intelligence cooperation, and the need for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. "Ultimately this [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] is a really hard problem that has been lingering for over six decades," Obama said at a joint press conference with Netanyahu. Asked "what went wrong" after his first term promise to not let the Palestinian issue slip to his second term, Obama explained that "what I said was, I was not going to wait to start on the issue until my second term because I thought it was too important. And that's exactly what I did. I am absolutely sure that there are a host of things that I could have done that would have been more deft and, you know, would have created better optics. But ultimately, this is a really hard problem." Netanyahu replied: "For this, you need a second term as president and a third term as prime minister. That really fixes things." Obama reiterated his full commitment to the two-state solution. "Assad lost his legitimacy" Between a string of ceremonies, public hugs and displays of friendship, Obama also held a three-hour meeting with Netanyahu on key issues. The meeting mainly focused on three topics: preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, coordinating plans of action in the event that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime collapses and chemical weapons leak to Syria, and ways to unfreeze the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Obama clarified that "Assad has lost his legitimacy to lead by attacking the Syrian people with almost every conventional weapon in his arsenal, including Scud missiles." "We also share Israel's grave concern about the transfer of chemical or other weapons systems to terrorists such as Hezbollah that might be used against Israel," Obama said. "The Assad regime must understand that they will be held accountable for the use of chemical weapons or their transfer to terrorists." Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon; International Relations, Intelligence and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz; and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attended a part of the work meeting that covered Syrian and Iranian threats. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who has been tasked with steering Israel in talks with the Palestinians, was present for the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Obama emphasized his dispute with Netanyahu on the Iranian nuclear issue. "We prefer to resolve this diplomatically, and there is still time to do so," Obama said, but agreed that "a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to the region, a threat to the world and potentially an existential threat to Israel. We agree on our goal. We do not have a policy of containment when it comes to a nuclear Iran. Our policy is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon." Obama echoed Netanyahus declaration that Israel has the right to "defend itself, by itself." Netanyahu thanked Obama, saying, "That is why I know that you appreciate that Israel never ceded the right to defend ourselves to others, even to the greatest of our friends, and Israel has no better friend than the United States of America." Netanyahu became especially emotional when Obama quoted a letter written by his late brother Yoni Netanyahu, who was killed in 1976 during the Entebbe operation. Senior Israeli officials are convinced that Obama has made a conscious adjustment in his attitude toward Netanyahu and Israel. "Obama came to Israel with an entirely different approach, apparently based on the lessons of his first term," said Homefront Defense Minister Gilad Erdan.
